1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image display apparatus arranged to scan images recorded on a film and display the scanned images, or an image printing apparatus arranged to print the scanned images.
2. Description of Related Art
An image display apparatus for scanning an image recorded on a film and displaying the scanned image is arranged, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. HEI 3-274047, to scan the image recorded on the film by using an image sensor such as a CCD and to display image data corresponding to the scanned image on a CRT (cathode-ray tube) or print the image data on a printing paper. According to the disclosed image display apparatus, the position of an image on the printing paper is automatically decided by detecting the direction of the image. In such an apparatus, the higher the image scanning resolution, the sharper the image displayed on the CRT or printed on the printing paper becomes. It is, therefore, preferable to increase the image scanning resolution for an ordinary viewing display.
Meanwhile, some of the image display apparatuses are arranged to permit selection of a desired display size of the image, and some of the image display apparatuses are capable of displaying a multiplicity of small-sized images on a single picture plane or on a single printing paper to be used as indexes for the images recorded on the film.
However, in the above image display apparatuses, there is a problem that, if image data corresponding to an image scanned at a high scanning resolution is displayed in a small size, a greater amount of image data than an amount of data sufficient for obtaining a visually required image resolution would have to be processed, thereby increasing the redundancy of the image data and lowering the processing efficiency. In addition, since a higher rate of the scanning resolution necessitates a longer period of time for scanning an image with the image sensor, when a multiplicity of images have to be processed, such as in the case of the index display, the period of time required for processing the image data becomes very long. Further, in order to process image data corresponding to an image scanned at the high scanning resolution, the storage capacity of a memory arranged to temporarily store the image data must be also increased, thereby disadvantageously causing an increase in production cost.
On the other hand, if image data corresponding to an image scanned at a low scanning resolution is displayed in a large size, the image resolution would become insufficient for visual sensations, thereby resulting in a poor quality of the image display.
Incidentally, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. HEI 6-326840, there is disclosed an art of varying a scanning resolution according to the enlarging rate of a print.
In accordance with one aspect of this invention, there is provided an image display apparatus or an image printing apparatus in which, when scanning an image recorded on a film, a scanning resolution of the image is varied according to a size of display or a size of print of the image, so that a processing period of time for image data can be made short without requiring a large storage capacity.
The above and other aspects and objects of this invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of an embodiment thereof taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.